Pork Ribs, el Dia Dos: Tacos

Very early this morning, I practically shot right up out of bed: "I've got it! We'll make tacos!"

Pork tacos are one of Margy's favorite dishes, and my little eureka moment was me realizing how perfectly the braised country ribs would adapt themselves for this purpose. Hours later, as dinner approached, I put my plan into action.

First I made guacamole. Then I shredded the meat from a few ribs with a fork and warmed it up on the stove, adding some canned chipotle in adobo sauce for a bit of spice and a tasty Mexican twinge. Margy grated cheddar, I chopped lettuce, a can of refried beans was opened.

I heated flour tortillas in a dry skillet and then piled everything on. I couldn't resist overloading each and every taco, but we didn't mind a bit -- we came to the table ready to do some work. But still, there's plenty of pork left...

My New Favorite Mexican Restaurant

Tonight I realized my dream of eating a nice dinner in an NYC bodega.

I had read about little Mexican grocers and delis that have a tiny kitchen in the back, but I had never been to one. Indeed, this place, a hole in the wall on 10th Avenue, was exactly that -- shelves of canned goods and fridges full of beer and soda in the front, then in the rear about eight or ten stools and a little window leading to a kitchen. Stevesie brought us there -- me, Macca, and Looch, on our way to take a rock and roll cruise around Manhattan -- and he did the honors of asking, in Spanish, if it was okay to drink beer with our tacos. It was.

The tacos were two bucks apiece. I had one with roast pork and one with chorizo and potato, and both were delicious. Macca and Looch found that two between the two of them wasn't quite enough, so Looch went to the counter for a second course and designed her own creation, which she had to repeat a couple times to the woman taking her order. Potato and jalapeño taco, she said, and that's what she got. "I think this is the hottest thing I've ever eaten," she wheezed, as her ears turned red and her eyes began to fog over. I'll try one of those next time.

Taco Night

I can't remember the last time Margy and I have spent so many days apart, and so our reunion was sweet indeed. A proper supermarket run was out of the question -- I just didn't feel like dealing -- so we stopped by Whole Foods for a few things on the way home from the train station.

I asked Margy what she wanted for dinner, and she suggested tacos. Brilliant! We got some ground pork, since all the bigger cuts of pork were astronomically expensive, plus taco shells, canned chipotle sauce (I'd hoped to find whole chipotles, but no luck), avocados, and cheddar cheese. Back at home we made guacamole and saffron rice while I cooked the pork with onions, garlic, a pinch of cumin, and the chipotle sauce.

Taco night is always great fun, and this might have been our finest effort, thanks largely to the chipotle sauce and homemade guac, but next time I'm going to bite the bullet and shop for real at ShopRite. The Whole Foods selection wasn't that great, and the prices were ridiculously high. And I was most disappointed to find that their good-looking organic carrots tasted like cardboard. We did get some pretty good apricot fruit leather, though.